[Peace, Path]

  Opal was working on her first writing project and Mossbeard was drawing away right next to her at the bookstore counter. When Arjun came in.

  “Well did I lie wasn’t it the most entertaining show you’d ever expect to see at the Library.”

  “No you didn’t lie, Groucho is one of a kind, where did you ever find a talking chimpanzee?”

  “Groucho is one of our roommates and is also part of the acting troupe at the theater. I’m not sure but I think the next play may be a Marx Brothers play from back in the nineteen thirties, with Groucho playing his name sakes part. So if you are going to stick around for months at least that’s something to look forward to.”

  “So Sparky didn’t come back?”

  “No Arjun, I don’t know why you don’t trust me, I wish I had recorded Sparky’s instructions to me, so you’d have heard how long term and detailed they were.”

  “It’s not that I don’t believe you Rose, it's more like I can’t believe my bad luck. For years and years I’ve been searching for him. All of a sudden he pops up on my radar only to vanish just as quickly.”

  “Well I’m sorry that you’ve come a long way for nothing, but if you really are going to stay. Why not volunteer at the clinic, Lottie’s interested in magical healing, if I were a healer, I’d be interested to learn how everything in the body works. Doctors transplant organs from the dead to give new life to the living. Their form of healing seems like half alchemy and half surgery. Drugs and cutting, have you ever studied with an alchemist?”

  “No, my only magical training was in healing magic, and really that training is just how to optimize my output, to maximize healing. I think your apprentice is more than a match for my magic, she seemed to effortlessly finish healing Mrs Eymen.”

  “Well according to Opal’s teacher, you can make your magical capacity larger. But that only happens with practice, so unless you have an unlimited supply of sick or injured people, the only way I know to practice is creating magical fields, now that I’ve seen what Opal is capable of, I too want to improve so what I’m going to do is every day, I’m going to create magical fields, if they can be put to a useful purpose that would be ideal. But the thing I really need to learn is how to take back the magic. That way my daily practice isn’t limited by my small capacity.”

  “So you put the magic out then suck it back in again, and you teacher claims this makes your capacity greater?”

  “Yes over time, magical capacity couldn’t have anything to do with the physical size of the person, it has to be some invisible metric inside the body or perhaps the mind, the imagination.”

  The bells tolled, time to close, time to go home and see Lu. I turned to Opal and Mossbeard.

  “Alright you two, time to wrap it up for the day, and get ready to go home.”

  “I’m sorry Arjun, it’s time for me to close the shop.”

  “I understand and I’ll see you tomorrow Rose.”

  “Goodnight Arjun.” I couldn’t help liking the guy. But that’s exactly how a master spy would present themselves. A surly, illmannered spy would get little intel from the people around them.

  After Arjun had gone, I hustled Mossbeard and Opal home, promising to follow in a few minutes. But I wanted to hear what EG had to say.

  “EG, before I go home, I have to know. Is Arjun a threat or just a random nice guy?”

  “Rose I detected no deceit, but I will of course continue to monitor him, until you inform me that you no longer want me too.”

  “Thanks EG, I’ll see you tomorrow.” With that I flipped open my wallet and portaled to the library.”

  “Hiya Rose, you really love that portal wallet don’t you?”

  “Yes, Doug, it's very handy and also efficient. Speaking of handy and efficient, do you have any information on an Arjun Votrie.”

  “Of course Rose and so do you, although my information may be a little more current than yours.”

  “Doug, I don’t know anything about him. So be handy and efficient and tell me what you know about him, please.”

  “Rose, you do know about him, I believe that you sat through the play four times. Maybe you were so focused on your girl friends lute playing you weren’t following the story. Votrie is really not his last name, his last name is lost in time, Votrie is an ancient way of spelling votary. Arun is the son of the indian votaress.

  ‘She was a votaress of my order: And, in the spiced Indian air, by night, Full often hath she gossip'd by my side; And sat with me on Neptune's yellow sands, Marking the embarked traders on the flood; When we have laugh'd to see the sails conceive And grow big-bellied with the wanton wind; Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait Following (her womb then rich with my young squire), Would imitate, and sail upon the land, To fetch me trifles, and return again, As from a voyage, rich with merchandise. But she, being mortal, of that boy did die; And for her sake I do rear up her boy; And for her sake I will not part with him.’

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  He’s Titania’s adopted son.”

  “Are you certain Doug? This is bad, I knew that he might be a spy sent by Titania but I never expected that she would send her own son after Sparky.”

  “Yes, I’m certain, while not much is written in Quintessence, about a century ago a tragic romantic poem was written about Arjun, adopted son of the queen whose heart was broken by a courtier. So as long as you have the correct name, I’m one hundred percent certain.”

  “Now what am I supposed to do?”

  “Do, about what?”

  “About, Arjun, how do I get rid of him.”

  “You mean to kill Titania’s son?”

  “No, don’t be dense, I mean how do I get him out of Wyldwood.”

  “That’s easy enough, you lie.”

  “Lie about what?”

  “Lie about where Sparky is, send the boy on a wild goose chase, tell him you heard from Sparky and that he is in Cairo, he’s had a lead on some papyrus that was saved from the library of Alexandria. It’s plausible and it’s also something that Sparky would literally jump worlds to obtain.”

  “I don’t know Doug, that sounds like a temporary fix at best, after he spends enough time in Cairo, he’ll figure out that Sparky isn’t there. But he knows that Sparky has an entire life here. A tower, a store and two apprentices, that he will eventually need to get back to. I need to kill him off.”

  “Rose that doesn’t sound like you at all, and I know you are under a lot of pressure here, but think this through, if you kill Arjun, Titania will flatten this town, and everyone in it. You and I included.”

  “No, no, no I am not talking about killing Arjun, I’m talking about killing Sparky.”

  “That would get rid of Arjun permanently, but I don’t really see what you’ve gained, besides a dead Grandmaster. There will be plenty of investigating, looking into the circumstances, by other very powerful mages. They don’t like it when one of their own dies. It reminds them of their mortality. If something is strong enough to kill a Grandmaster, then the grandmasters must band together to deal with the threat. Or they could be next. That whole idea is like beating on a hornets nest and waiting for it to fall on your head. I suggest you talk this over with everyone before you do something rash. A lot of innocent people live in this town, and I know you, Rose, you couldn’t live with yourself if they got hurt.”

  “Well no one could blame this town if Sparky fell into Mount Doom, we just have to think up a desolate location, a reliable witness, a way that there could be no remains. Mount Doom would be perfect, but I don’t see any logical reason to get Sparky there, nor a witness and to what. Maybe Sparky turned evil so he decided to go after the one ring himself.”

  “Rose you are spiraling, you do not have to do anything right away. In fact that would just make it look even more suspicious. Just think, when Sparky leaves, Arjun arrives, Sparky dies. It’d look like Sparky was faking his own death. So then Arjun has even more reason to stick around, believing that Sparky is faking his death, so that he can come home and even worse, what if that is exactly what Sparky is up to. Setting up a plausible Mount Doom scenario, only to be wrecked by the very apprentice he left in charge. Take some advice Rose. Do nothing, keep an eye on this Arjun. Keep your friends close but your enemies even closer.”

  “Alright Doug, you’ve made your point.” He had too, what if Sparky was out there killing himself metaphorically and I made a hash of it here. If Sparky stays away long enough, even a spy will get bored of Wyldwood if they have nothing to do. I shouldn’t have encouraged him to volunteer with Lottie. At least he didn’t hop on the idea.

  I walked down to Draco’s lair, knocked on the door. After Draco invited me in, I went over the whole story, Sparky, Arjun, and Titania. Speculating about what to do with Doug. His advice to do nothing.

  “I’m not great at doing nothing, Draco. In fact you may say that I’m actually terrible at it. I just don’t have the patience for it.”

  “Then think of this whole situation this way Rose, you speculated that Sparky might have set up this whole chain of events, as either a lesson or a test. My advice is assume that it is a test of your patience, do you really want the sarcastic Sparky to walk back in here and declare that you utterly failed. You’ll never hear the end of it. No matter where Sparky is or what he is doing, he’s safe, he is a Grandmaster and they don’t just go around handing out titles like that. While he is a youngster to me, he’s ten times your age and experience so trust him to know what he is doing. Lastly, think about this again. Do you really want the overly sarcastic Sparky to waltz in and say you failed, over and over again, everyday, for the next six and a half years of your apprenticeship.”

  “No”

  “I understand, having issues with impatience, when something really annoys me, I usually just fly out and try to burn it or something else, to the ground, might I suggest the equivalent to you, let’s do some magical field practice, you said you want to push yourself so you need to do it every day. I think I read somewhere that if you do something for seven days in a row you form a habit, so focus on growing your magical power, while you wait for Sparky to return. Then you can rub it in his face for the next six years instead of him doing it to you. What you really need to learn is how to absorb the magic expended back into your magical energy. That way you can practice longer and use more and more magic”

  So that’s what we did for the next hour. I created a magical field, I tried to absorb the magical field, instead it popped in my face and I lost the magical energy. After about forty five minutes of practice I was starting to get tired, I really wanted that energy back, as I felt that I’d pretty much reached my limit. That’s when for the first time, the magic came back to me. I actually felt better when the power returned. I spent the final fifteen minutes creating and absorbing. I think I learned the secret, I had to really really want that magic back. When I did that it actually came back.

  “Draco, thank you so much, I learned a lot and even better I feel much better and you are one hundred percent correct, I want to rub it in Sparky’s face for the next six plus years.”

  “Yeah, I thought you might.”